#Hannit; Ophelia; and Primrose? Lesbians

[noise-sama]

Octopath Traveler Small Analysis

Warning: Minor Spoilers from Chapter 2 and beyond in Octopath!!

also I’m still going through Chapter 2 for 3 more characters but I think that this is still relevant throughout this game. May edit if some of my remarks are wrong

I think that Octopath Traveler is a super fun game with intriguing main cast of characters. However, I think that it greatly suffers from what I call, “Gameplay and Story Disconnect.”

An example of this would be like when a minor story npc dies in Octopath, and one of the protags could simply use a revive item to bring them back to life, instead of letting them die. 

All 8 characters have their own story and plotline. There are small banter sections within chapters but they do not converse within the actual plot. For example, let’s say in a Primrose chapter, a friend of her’s could be suffering from an illness but Alfyn wouldn’t appear to cure them even though he’s in your party.

The main cast traveling together is treated more as a gameplay mechanic than as a story mechanic or even a group of people developing into a tight knit friend group. Maybe they will become closer near end game but a lot of the development towards bonding through friendship and compadre would be missing (or so what I think will happen).

Sometimes, two characters would have their chapters set in the same place. I was half expecting them to possibly interact within their chapters since they would be in the same town but they didn’t. I also think that the fact that the story is both ‘open’ and ‘non-linear’ affects this. There isn’t an exact date or time to determine the timeline of the events that happen. So maybe it was because I played one character’s chapter before the second character’s? Who knows? Time isn’t a construct in this game’s lore, I guess?

There’s also a secondary job mechanic in this game! Sometimes that can make the story a bit jarring too. Going back to the Primrose’s sick friend example, let’s say, this time, Primrose has the Apothecary second job. She has the job during gameplay battles but in the story, she still won’t be able to to cure her friend because apparently, she doesn’t and won’t ever have that secondary job in her plotline.

Don’t get me wrong, this game is extremely enjoyable and I’m having tons of fun! But the disconnect between the gameplay mechanics and the overarching storylines are super jarring and I kinda wish they had more time to design the game further and maybe more relevant conversations between the group.

Feel free to discuss or add on!!